Interestingly, the word "hello" hasn't always been a greeting. It was originally used as an expression of surprise. It started being used as a greeting with the invention of the telephone. One of the original greetings or salutations when answering a phone was "Ahoy-hoy!" This is the version that Mr Burns uses in The Simpsons.

“Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions.” – Blaise Pascal